17 Must Have Items in Your Kitchen Utensil Drawer and What to Do With the Extras

Every momma deserves to be able to find items they need quickly and efficiently.

Every momma deserves to able to put away these items quickly and to have their family know exactly where everything goes so they can help tidy the kitchen.

The kitchen utensil drawers can often times be a big fat mess. Sometimes there is so much stuff in there you can’t even close the drawers! Well let’s fix that today! Let’s streamline that mess and make it as simplified as possible.

Listed below are the 17 must haves in every kitchen utensil drawer. Well 16 if you don’t partake in a nice glass of wine every now and then. There are only three items that I would have duplicates of for sanitary purposes. These are cooking spoons, spatulas and tongs. Having two pairs of tongs when handling raw meat is a must. It is difficult to cook quickly if you have to take time to sanitize while you are grilling, frying or searing meat. You may also want and extra spoon or spatula. But don’t over do it, don’t buy 10 of each. This makes clutter and clutter is bad. Clutter gives you more to deal with and takes up space in the drawer that is not necessary.

Chef Knife – I use Wustof, they simply rock.

Pairing Knife

Bread Knife

Knife Sharpener

Can opener

Instant Read Thermometer

Large Spoon

Slotted Spoon

Spatula

Whisk

Masher

Kitchen Scissors

Heat resistant strainer with a handle. Joyce Chen makes great ones!

Tongs

Vegetable peeler

Wine Opener – Oxo makes great ones.

Meat Tenderizer with one side that is flat

What to do with the extras?

I store my extras by category in clear shoeboxes. I keep them in the pantry. But you can store your boxes any place you please. You can find these in almost any store and they are cheap, much cheaper than moving into a larger home with a larger kitchen. They are labeled by simple categories.

Cookie Baking – I have several sizes of what some folks call ice-cream scoops. I only use these at Christmas and an occasional party. These means that everyone in the family can have their own to scoop out just the right size of dough for large or small cookies. I also keep my shaped cookie cutters in this box.

Fruit and Vegetable Cutting Doodads – There is nothing better than a good quality pineapple spiral slicer. But this item is bulky and I only use it frequently when pineapples are in season because they are so cheap. The same with strawberry huller, cherry pitter and avocado slicer.

Baking and Decorating – Unless you decorate cupcakes and cookies every day of your life this is the top one that needs to go into storage and not take up your precious drawer space. I also keep my rolling pin right next to this box.

Now you may have several more categories to add to this. I would love to know them so please share.

If you have messy drawers then let’s get to it. Simple Daily Challenge for the day: Reclaim your drawer space, store the extras, and smile because you are an awesome momma!

About Pam List

ABOUT PAM: Pam is a veteran parent of two children, one married and one in high school. Happily married to the love of her life she is a retired music teacher that works for the family business and enjoys volunteering at school and church, as well as dabbling in graphic and web design.

This was very helpful! I have way too many items in my utensil drawer. Shrimp knife anyone? When we were remodeling our kitchen, we had to box up a lot of stuff and we realized what we could live without. When we got out all those boxes–a bunch of stuff went out the door!

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Hey There, I’m Pam!

And the my mission for this site is to help busy moms create a happy home and life. There are tons of recipes, gift ideas, and home management tips on this site with a dash of very important self-care. Read More